politics

LIAR!

by MyBaconPress

Did you know that on the floor of Congress, a congress critter can say anything they want? With impunity. That’s how the Republicans got away with showing their “revenge porn” of Hunter Biden, when they displayed huge blown up photos of him nude. They first tried posting them to various web sites but each time, Biden operatives got with the site and had them removed AS revenge porn, complete with very believable threats of lawsuits, I presume. The floor of Congress was literally, the only place they could do it, so, shamelessly, they did.

I would NOT like to see Dems in Congress go down that road – at least that far. But I’ll tell you this: I’m MORE than ready to see a Dem, any Dem, (please, God, SOME Dem) stand up after one of the MAGA makes some stupid, false claim on the floor and say, “You, sir (or madam, of course) are a liar! A stark-raving, bold-faced liar! You can either produce evidence of your claim, right now, or prove I am correct and you are lying.” Every time. Every. Single. Time.

They need to be just that blunt. Don’t couch it in political speak. As a group, Americans are stupid. They don’t understand, “I believe the gentlemen (or gentlewoman, of course) from (red state) has possibly misstated some of the salient facts in this issue that are not borne out by any evidentiary support whatsoever.” They understand, “You are a liar! Put up or shut up.”

The Dem base would love it. It would show the Dems really ARE fighting back against this nightmare. Hell, even some of the Cons would love it. (They wouldn’t admit it, though.) They admire strength (as they understand it) and straight talk is better that political talk. Besides, how would MAGA media “spin” (read: lie about) that? Do they try to belittle the Dem by showing the challenge, only to ALSO have to confess no such supporting evidence exists?

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Well, Rudy is out of the game. He got hit with a $148 Million dollar order to pay the election workers he smeared without basis during Donny’s 2020 election coup attempt for defamation. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss from Atlanta will likely never see any of that money, or most of it anyway. Rudy doesn’t have it and there is already a long line of creditors in front of them.

Rudy has claimed financial hardship in several of the legal actions he’s consumed by. I believe he’s already had to sell some property and the bills are piling up. That kind of a judgement likely will exceed his ability to pay. So he just shut his mouth, of course, and is making careful choices about the fights he’s fighting and the words he’s saying in public, right? What, did you just fall off a turnip truck?

No, he says he’s not allowed to present evidence. Dear Rudy, Lies are not “evidence” and the courts won’t let you just spew whatever you feel like saying. He says the whole thing will be turned over on appeal in a “fair” tribunal, the standard response from some puke who just got his ass handed to him in court. THEN, he says Freeman and Moss did exactly what he said they did – STILL without evidence. Oh, he should have talked to Donny about E. Jean Carroll before he doubled down on his defamation. They can come right back with, “See? He did it again, your honor. Apparently, he still hasn’t gotten the message.” Then, he’ll be given the opportunity to pay even more. For the rest of his life, every dime he makes will be garnished to pay the order. Standing by Donny sure paid off, eh, Rudy?

I think “Team Traitor” thought they could get away with smearing those two because they’re just average Americans. That is, they don’t have any money. But the Ladies Freeman and Moss have good lawyers. They’re being represented by a group called Protect Democracy. Pro Bono. ”Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss’s counsel team work on their behalf because of a shared belief in the righteousness of the case and its importance — both for the clients and for American democracy,” John Langford, an attorney for Protect Democracy, told Business Insider.

My understanding is that Protect Democracy employs some of the best lawyers in the business. Maybe they can file paperwork that moves Freeman and Moss to the front of the creditor line so they get something but I’m not sure the money was the most important point for these two. Sure, whatever they see will be nice, but I don’t think it was the focus.

Bye, Rudy. Don’t let the door hit you…

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So, Donny thinks he has immunity for life because he was, ostensibly, the President of the United States, although, as we know, he just golfed for four years. I don’t even believe he should have immunity while he’s infesting the Oval but, apparently, legal eagles disagree with me. Still, for life? I remember when Americans knew the President was a citizen first and President second, meaning he was subject to all the laws of the land, just like everybody else. It was better that way. Now MAGA thinks Donny is entitled to special treatment for some reason. So, Donny tried to stall his trials by claiming lifetime immunity, intending to move the thing through one court after another for, what, months?

Jack Smith is too smart for Donny, though. Jack asked the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court to just bypass all the lower court dawdling and hear the case right now. And the corrupt High Court said they would! That’s pretty cool. They have to get Clarence the Corrupt to recuse himself, though. His wife was an active part of the coup. She’s one of the High Lieutenants of Team Traitor and her bribe-taking husband shouldn’t be allowed a voice on ANYTHING relating to the coup attempt. Or anything else, for that matter.

Sometimes, this court actually uses the law to make decisions. It’s hard to say when that might happen but I don’t see anything in the question that might conflict with the religious views of those who prefer to rule by “feels” so…maybe Donny loses this one, too. We’ll all just have to wait and see.

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I have to do better at this. Recently, I wrote about a bill being introduced to block Wall Street from buying up all the single family homes in this once-great nation AND force them to divest their single family holdings within ten years. I suggested you call your congress critter and tell them to support the bill but I didn’t add contact info. So, here: https://www.congress.gov/contact-us (that’s a link). Using that site, you can find your Representative or Senator and how to contact them. The bill is ‘The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023.”

Take the time. It’s important to America’s future…

Speaking of Tax Frauds…

by MyBaconPress

Here in California, the cons are out with a new campaign against taxes. They bought a ballot initiative that is trying to limit the taxes the state can raise on it’s own AND make it more difficult for citizens to raise taxes via legitimate initiatives. (I distinguish between “bought” and “legitimate” based on whether paid signature collectors were used. Paid collectors shouldn’t be allowed. They have corrupted the process.) The supporting campaign keeps trying to make the case that the thing that makes California so expensive is taxes. That isn’t true. Granted It IS true that taxes are higher, here, than many other places. But when I start thinking about cost of living, taxes generally aren’t on the list. I don’t blame the government. I blame private and corporate entities.

Yes, California adds a bunch of gas tax – probably the most visible spot for “high taxes.” It’s somewhere between .83 cents and $1.08 per gallon, depending upon whom you believe. But the gas companies charge every cent they can get AND manipulate the market to keep prices higher than they need to be. The tax is dependable and predictable, but the rest of the price? That’s the variable and it fluctuates wildly based on…reasons.  The price fluctuations affect the prices of everything “downstream” that gets shipped anywhere. By themselves, the gas companies can seriously harm the economy on a whim – and they do so on a regular basis, often as a political statement. Those decisions are made in corporate boardrooms, not government offices.

When it’s time to cover my housing for the month, it’s not taxes that depress me. It’s the rent. It’s outrageous. Rents and mortgages in the state are probably the single most important driver of cost-of-living these days. And they’re outrageous because of private companies, not government. In fairness, it was a conservative government (43) decision that allowed (even encouraged) Wall Street to attack our living situations but that was deregulation, not taxes, and deregulation is a darling of the One Percent and the far right.

When I push my cart up and down the aisles in the local market, pricing decisions by private companies, not government, are looking me in the face, depressing the crap out of me. People don’t shop just on what they want. They have to consider what they can afford, as well. For many, that means less. Perhaps less quality, often, simply less food. But it’s not the taxes causing those choices. It’s pricing decisions made in boardrooms.

Our local, corporate, killer power provider (PG&E) already charges exorbitant prices and the increases just keep coming. Every time they kill a few people or burn down a town, they get a rate increase. Then, they get another increase to do the work they should have been doing in the first place. I don’t even buy power from PG&E, but they get to gouge me anyway through “delivery fees.” In winter, I don’t fear taxes. I fear my PG&E bill. We, the victims, get happy ads telling us how they’re working to do the right thing. And even that took deaths and lawsuits. Again, corporation. Not government, not taxes.

I do acknowledge that taxes are higher on the working class than they should be – everywhere in this once-great nation, not just California. But that’s because of a tax shift from the wealthy to the non-wealthy. If the One Percent would pay taxes at the same rate they extract from society, taxes could actually be reduced on the working class.

This tax trap measure is basically the same play Ohio tried to make to keep citizens from adding abortion protections to their state constitution. Get a ballot measure on some fake “issue” to make it harder to govern or make changes, locking in advantage for one team that disadvantages everyone else. In this case, the One Percent don’t want to pay taxes on what they take out of our society, so they try to make it harder to raise their taxes by subjecting the process to a decidedly NOT democratic two-thirds threshold instead of a simple majority.

I’ll tell you this: I don’t think we should let them do it. If you agree, vote against this latest measure, the ‘California Two-Thirds Legislative Vote and Voter Approval for Fee and Charge Increases Initiative,’ (that’s a mouthful) when it comes up on the ballot…

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Well, Draymond Green finally got himself suspended indefinitely. Green has been a dirty player for quite some time. Those who like him just say he takes no guff but I think he’s too aggressive and has been for a long time. He keeps getting suspended for unsportsmanlike behavior and after his last episode, hitting an opposing player in the face, the league has had enough. Good. The Warriors keep him around because of his talent, but I don’t know what value he brings to the team, not being on the court…

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In a move that shocked absolutely nobody, the cons have decided, reluctantly, of course, to move forward with their politically driven “impeachment inquiry” into Joe Biden’s activities. I get it. They have no choice. The lack of evidence demands it. They absolutely MUST do it. How else are they going to find a charge? So far, nothing they’ve done has worked. They’ve leveled unsubstantiated accusations. They’ve suggested, without support, misbehavior. They’ve made unfounded assertions. I mean, what does a corrupt party have to do to get a response from people, these days?

They had it all worked out. They’d get Hunter to “testify” behind closed doors so nobody could hear what he said, then they’d rush out to the microphones and claim that Hunter had handed them the smoking gun and now they just HAD to move forward. Hunter sort of shot a hole in their plan by not showing up. (I think he plans to honor their subpoena right after Jim Jordan honors the subpoena he ignored from the J6 committee.) So they couldn’t blame Hunter but it didn’t stop them from moving forward with the rest…

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Hey, speaking of stupid, does anybody know exactly what the right wants to see at the border? I mean, are we actually supposed to set up gun turrets and simply murder anybody we see who happens to be too close to the border? ”Close the border” is so much easier to say than to do. What, exactly, are they asking for?

I’d like to wind the cons up a bit. Sure, any thinking person knows walls don’t work but I say we should give them their stupid wall after all – but only if we use a billionaire tax to pay for it. (It turns out Mexico didn’t, won’t, never has, and never will pay for it.) It’ll be in interesting social experiment. Do cons hate brown people or love billionaire wealth more? Inquiring minds, indeed…

Fears, Frauds, and Frustrations…

by MyBaconPress

It’s not that I think the machines are rigged so I hope none of the makers decide to sue ME for $1.2 Billion dollars. BUT…one thing we’ve learned from Donny and his henchmen – and henchwomen (you don’t really hear much about henchwomen, these days, but henchmen need love, too) – is that the people overseeing the machines might well take actions that benefit their preferred candidate instead of just doing their jobs.

I KNOW this because Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairperson of Coffee County, GA, did exactly that. She let people in and let them root around in her machines for awhile. They even brought in sandwiches and she took a proud selfie with one of the intruders, now charged with burglary! She’s just one. But think of the number of election workers out there who might just love, love, love Donny and might do anything to help him win – even cheat (and then go to jail, of course.)

DO NOT vote on machines. They CAN be distorted to a person’s preference, assuming a little help from despicable people who move into positions of trust, and such a deal could change the outcome of the election. Might a worker allow Russians to hack the machines and change the results? Of course. Might they allow someone in to bring their own dongle and change results? Why not? It’s not the machines that are a problem. It’s some of the people overseeing the machines I don’t trust.

We KNOW evil Vlad wants Donny back. It will help him take Ukraine. It will help him destroy NATO. Donny wants the help and Vlad wants to give it to him. His sycophants will do the rest. Vote by mail-in ballot. It’s more secure. It’s harder to distort. It’s safer for America…

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Well, how disappointing. Donny isn’t going to testify today. First, he was going to bring in over 100 witnesses in an attempt to slow things down but the judge said he doesn’t want or need people repeating testimony that has already been entered into the record. After all, how many people can swear to their unsupportable belief that Donny isn’t a dumbass, despite all available evidence to the contrary? So, they pared it down. Eric would testify on Wednesday but Donny, himself, would take the stand and prove his innocence by Monday.

Obviously, Donny’s expected brilliance rendered Eric’s fawning testimony moot so he was canceled, leaving Donny to come in and clean up the mess. I suspect he was planning to prove his innocence by laying on the floor, kicking and screaming, while threatening to hold his breath until he turned blue and calling it the “nuculer option.” (Even THAT would have come out “nuclaler.”

Alina Habba, Donny’s “lawyer,” who might want to start preparing for her own defense, was trotted out to offer an excuse. She says she discouraged his testimony while there was a gag order in place because a gag order would have squelched his testimony. Couple-a things. One, Donny doesn’t listen to attorneys. His attorneys listen to him and do as their told. (That’s why they keep going to jail.) More importantly, the gag order only keeps him from attacking people associated with the trial, not offering testimony relevant to his defense. The sudden turnaround lends credence to my theory that he planned to use the ‘laying on the floor, kicking and screaming, while threatening to hold his breath until he turned blue’ defense.

As a sidebar: Donny has taken to saying that shutting down his criminal enterprise will discourage any other businesses from coming to New York. My guess? One, he’s wrong again. Two, if you want to bring a criminal enterprise to New York City, I’m thinking New York won’t mind, much, if you don’t. Otherwise, I’d guess New York is going to be just fine, thank you, very much…

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Sports Stuff
Well, the Kansas City Chiefs are having a bad moment. They ran a play at the end of their game that gave them the game winning score. It was brilliant and a beautiful thing to see and I’m glad I got to see it. Sadly, it didn’t count because a player on their team lined up illegally at the start of the play. It’s very clear he was offside but the team was in the middle of enjoying the high that came with pulling out a last minute win when the flag was thrown – then it all went away and the Chiefs lost, instead. Talk about emotional whiplash!

Their Head Coach, Andy Reid, and their Quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, were furious. It’s rare to see either of them behave that way. They had tantrums on the sidelines. They complained at the after-game presser. KC fans are all worked up. It’s outrage. But they’re going to watch the film of it. They’ll see their guy in the wrong place. HE was the problem, not the officials. (I have no love of officials. They mess up as often as not but this time they got it right.) They’ll settle down. I respect both men so I’m going to let them have a bad moment…

More importantly, though, everything fell into place for the “local” and beloved Santa Clara Forty-Niners. The teams that needed to lose, lost, and the teams that needed to win (including the Niners) won, moving the Niners into first place in the Conference. For now, anyway. It means home field advantage throughout the playoffs but their position is a bit precarious. They have to win all the rest of their games to keep it. Otherwise, they need a little help.

I thought they were going to lock up their Division with that win and the Rams loss, but they haven’t quite done it, yet. There’s a not-very-likely but mathematically possible scenario where they end up losing the Division to the Rams, so it’s going to take one more week. (I guess I’m being a bit impatient.)

I’ll tell you this: I’ll be watching…

‘Stupid’ the Country Away?

by MyBaconPress

Sometimes, I hammer on a topic. A LOT. Those are the issues I tend to see as the most crucial to be addressed and you, my faithful reader, get to see it over and over. One of my focal points has been, as you know if you’ve followed me for very long, about “pooled money investors” (Wall Street) buying single family homes and all the damage it does to our society. Sure, people are making money right now but that money is going to be useless when society collapses under the weight of a furious and frustrated population. Well, guess what?

Two Democrats (it had to be Democrats. They’re the only party interested in helping people.) introduced a bill to stop Wall Street from buying single family homes! AND they would be required to divest of all of their single family holdings within 10 years! That’s a little slower than my proposal but I’m not one to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Democrats Adam Smith (Wa) and Jeff Merkley (Or) introduced the ‘End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act.’ There are several co-sponsors, all Dems, of course. Call yours. Tell them to vote in support of this act.

Forcing working class Americans to try to “compete” with the endlessly deep pockets of Wall Street was NEVER Capitalism. There IS no competition. Capitalists ALWAYS want complete control over things people MUST have so they can squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the money out of you and housing is a plum target market Wall Street tries to corner from time to time. Congressional rule changes in 2011, after Wall Street crashed the economy through a mortgage scheme that had created false home values and was now leaving FAR too many homes on the market unsold and owned by banks, allowed Wall Street to start again, and start they did. (You may recall the stat that ONE COMPANY now owns enough single family homes to house the entire population of Iceland – and there are lots of these companies.)

You want to know why rents are so high? Wall Street buying single family homes as investments. You want to know why house prices have skyrocketed? Wall Street buying single family homes as investments. You want to know why so many young people still live at home and simply can’t afford to move out or buy their own homes? Wall Street buying single family homes as investments. You want to know why the homeless problem has ballooned? Wall Street buying single family homes as investments. You know what would help fix all of those problems at the same time and in one fell swoop? Stop Wall Street from buying single family homes as investments!

Dear MAGA, this bill will help YOU, too. You’re being priced out of the home-buying market right along with everyone else. Your side maintains that wealth is built generationally and that home buying is a key factor. This is a rare opportunity to do the right thing AND to do so thinking of yourself and nobody but yourself – your favorite person to consider. For God’s sake, don’t help the Dems – screw the Dems! Help yourself. Contact YOUR congress critters, too, and get them on board. Or, try, at least. I’d bet there are truckloads of bribes on their way to Congress right now and Republicans are well known for pampering corporations. But try.

This is a good thing…

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Donny did a rant outside his fraud trial the other day. Same old, same old. “We won at the appellate level.” No, you didn’t. You lost. The Appeals court has paused a ruling, but they have NOT struck it down – and they’re not going to. “I expect him to rule against me.” That would be FAR more insightful if the Judge had not ALREADY ruled against him. Donny has lost this case, already. He and his family committed the crimes he stands accused of and there is no question. (I don’t even have to say, “allegedly.”) The rest is just to determine an appropriate punishment.

Watching him ramble, blame, obfuscate, ramble, digress, lie, distort, ramble some more, deceive, and spew his nonsense is a very old act, by now. Bor-ing! We know, Donny. Everybody lies but you. Thousands of people are simply engaged in a perfectly kept conspiracy. People enforcing laws that have been on the books longer than you’ve been alive are the bad guys and you, the perfect business man – who has never run a successful, honest business in his life -are somehow a victim.

I know most of your audience is old and old people tend to like hearing the old, familiar bits but if you’re going to expand your base, you’re going to need some new material – and soon. You’ve played out the whole “Oh, poor, poor put-upon me” bit. You don’t remind me of a fighter with great resolve so much as a little brat having a tantrum that has gone on for years, now. Snore. Someone needs to send that child to his room…

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An officer of a company is a formal leader who has more responsibility and authority than rank-and-file employees and is elected by the board of directors. If the “company” is the United States, and the “board of directors” are the citizens of the United States, the President of the United States IS an officer.

So-called (likely self-described) legal “experts” (HEY, don’t they effing HATE experts?) are bending themselves into pretzels trying to pretend the President of the United States can engage in insurrection any time he wants and nobody can touch him because he’s not an officer of the United States.

What about the so-called “originalists?” When the founders originally wrote the Constitution, they wrote in Article II, Section I, “…and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and the Vice President, declaring what OFFICER (emphasis, mine) shall then act as President, and such OFFICER shall act accordingly…” Okay, in fairness, that sentence was removed by a subsequent amendment (the Fifteenth) but it certainly indicates the founder’s intention that the President of the United States is, indeed, an officer of the United States.

We, the people, shouldn’t have to surrender our Constitutional Republic to a autocratic dictator because some schlub wrote an amendment less eloquently than the writing of the founders. It defies logic and common sense that the President of the United States might not be an Officer of the United States. Please, God, don’t let us “stupid” our country away…

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Quick question. We know from the trials that Donny received advice from two different groups of attorneys. One group consisted of highly qualified lawyers who knew the law and told him what he was planning to do – and then was actually doing on J6 – was illegal. Another group consisted of highly UNqualified, soon-to-be-NOT-lawyers who happily confirmed his delusion that the President of the United States can do anything he wants.

Donny is supposed to be some kind of genius, brilliant leader, right? If the argument he’s trying to make in court that he was mislead by his lawyers is true (it isn’t), how could he have been so completely deceived by the bad attorneys and so completely disregard all the good, solid legal input he was receiving at the exact same time? I mean, where was his pretended “shrewd insight” then? Just asking…

Troubles With Conservatives…

by MyBaconPress

I saw a woman I like very much the other day. I hadn’t seen her in awhile and I don’t expect to see her again before December 25. I know she’s a conservative. As I hugged her, I wished her a Merry Christmas.

Look, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Super Saturnalia, Awesome Athiestica, I don’t care. But if YOU do, and I know your preference, I’ll tailor my well-wishes to you. Generally, I use ‘Happy Holidays’ because I don’t know who does what at any given moment and I intend to wish people the best of the season. Secretly, I think we should all use the real message, “Holy crap, we survived another one!” but I doubt it will catch on anytime soon.

When conservatives launched their war on the non-existent war on Christmas, insisting everybody say ‘Merry Christmas,’ lefties responded that ‘Happy Holidays’ covers them all. This seems to have set up a two-side thing but I don’t have loyalty to any of them. If I see you wearing a sweater with Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, trimmed trees, and snow – you know, to capture the glory of Christ’s spring birth – I’ll wish you ‘Merry Christmas.’ Your yarmulke is definitely going to inspire a ‘Happy Hanukah.’ Honestly? I’m not familiar with the symbols of other religions, so you’re going to get a ‘Happy Holidays’ but that’s lack of information, not aggressive anti-Christmas.

I’ll tell you this: Looks like it’s going to be another year with zero casualties in the Season’s Greetings War…

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Hunter got into more trouble. Tax troubles in California. Cons are certain Joe Biden is running interference for Hunter in his various cases and they think Joe should suffer because of Hunter’s misdeeds. They believe Joe is covering for Hunter because they KNOW that, given the chance, THEY would interfere to protect 45. They already have! It’s called projection. They know they would cheat, so they assume everyone cheats.

In a completely unrelated note (but is it?) rational people the world over are currently freaking out about the possibility that 45 might end up back in the Oval Room. (Apparently, it’s not an Office.) One main reason is the power of the President to issue pardons. Everyone knows (even the cons know) that if he gets back, Trump will pardon his henchmen and try to pardon himself for his and their crimes.

But wait! That means that if Joe wanted to run interference for his son, he could easily PARDON Hunter. But he hasn’t done that. Why, pray tell, would he tinker around the edges and never just solve Hunter’s problem? Nope, he’s letting it play out properly.

Another always-wrong conservative hypothesis bites the dust…

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This is your world on conservatism. A Texas woman got pregnant and, sadly, the fetus is not viable. It has a fatal chromosomal condition called Trisomy 18 and cannot survive. Doctors have warned that continuing the pregnancy could endanger the life of the mother and/or her future fertility. Texas, of course, is one of those “Suffer, Bitches” states and she had to sue to get permission to obtain an abortion. The judge in the case, Maya Guerra Gamble, has given official permission for the procedure.

It’s obnoxious enough that the conservatives inserted the extra (costly) step to the only viable choice this woman has but, hey, it worked out, right? Well, no. Of course not right. Because of the right. The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, (go ahead, guess which party. I’ll wait.) has warned every doctor he can think of that he plans to take legal action against any/every medical professional who dares to help that woman.

Oh, for good measure, he has also threatened medical facilities in the area – just in case she finds a doctor who cares more about good medicine than partisan politics. In his letter to the facilities, Attorney General Paxton actually wrote (I’m not making this up) that Gamble was “not medically qualified to make this determination.” Ostensibly, AG Paxton studied law, not medicine. How is HE medically qualified to deny the judge’s motion? Oh, and wouldn’t Judge Gamble’s original decision have been based on input from medical professionals, specifically, doctors? I’m going to go out on a limb, here, and suggest that doctors are FAR more “medically qualified” than the AG. Oh, but evil never rests.

You see, the State of Texas appealed the ruling, asking the State Supreme Court to put an immediate hold on Judge Gamble’s ruling – which it did “without regard to the merits.” This is just cruelty writ large. This is no party girl who just wants an easy way out. This woman wants to be a mother. This is a tragedy in her world. There is no “baby” to protect. The fetus is not viable. Continuing the pregnancy puts the mother’s life and future fertility at risk. There is NO reasonable explanation for why these men – and you KNOW it’s men – are fighting this, except for their real reason for being anti-abortion in the first place, “That slut had sex and needs to be punished for it.”

I’ll tell you this: This is the world conservatives want for everybody, Americans first. If this kind of horrific nightmare is what you crave, you really should vote Republican. But if you prefer a better world for FAR more people, never, ever vote for any conservative. Those people have “issues” and they want to inflict as much damage as possible, as far and wide as possible, because of them.

Pointless Failures and Horrific Success…

by MyBaconPress

The Republicans wanted to make absolutely, definitely, for positively sure that anybody and everybody knew that THEY are the party of not trusting women to make their own reproductive choices. (Some of that “Freedumb” they’re always on about.) So they put up a GREAT BIG TENT, with a great big neon sign that read ‘Suffer, bitches!,’ and set Senator Tommy Tumorville outside as the barker.
“Um…It’s Tuberville.”
“Are you sure? He sure seems like a cancer. ‘Tumorville’ is FAR more accurate.”
“Don’t be a baby. It’s Tuberville. And it’s pronounced like a bath tub. Tuberville.”
“Oh, all right.”

Tuberville used his b.s. filibuster to block over 400 military promotions. Why? Well, because he’s a self-important blowhard who believes that he, and he alone should decide how the military works AND what women do with their bodies. When the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court took away a woman’s right to choose – after swearing under oath such a thing was Stare Decisis, legal gobbledygook for “settled law” they would never, ever touch, oh, nosiree – the military said they would reimburse any member who had to travel to another state for an abortion or for other reproductive services.

Tommy didn’t like that, so he attacked the military by holding up hundreds of promotions in the highest ranks, interfering with operations across the land. Even Republicans pointed out that none of the officers in question had anything to do with that reimbursement decision and none of the officers in question had or would have the power to change the policy. Nothing like taking the fight right to where it isn’t. (It is the way of the moron, Grasshopper…)

This went on for a long time. Cut to the end. On Tuesday, Tuberville finally, magnanimously “relented” – since he was about to be beaten, anyway, with a legislative maneuver – and lifted his blockade of promotions and almost immediately, 425 promotions were approved by the Senate. Because he’s still a petulant asshole, Tuberville is still holding up around 10 more, for four star generals.

There was a time in this once-great nation when left and right argued about government spending and came to some compromise. Now the Republicans have devolved to a point where they want to throw women and doctors in jail over medical procedures and that’s not even the worst thing they’re proposing and swearing to do to Americans. Never vote Republican!

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I guess if Kevin McCarthy doesn’t get to be Speaker of the House, he doesn’t want to be anything. Finally, something McCarthy and I can agree on. He shouldn’t be in Congress. Thankfully, he’s leaving. Despite our reputation, California has some areas that are BRIGHT, one might say blood-red (being conservatives) and McCarthy represents one of them, the Bakersfield area. That means his replacement will almost certainly be a Republican, but not until a special election so his seat might be vacant for awhile.

What with the ostensible George Santos “quitting” Congress in a huff immediately after being fired by Congress, the nutball contingent is getting smaller and smaller. If they’re not careful, they might accidentally allow Congress to get something helpful done.

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I’d like to take a moment, here, to congratulate the NRA, the conservatives, and the murderous mass shooters out there. Your efforts have paid off handsomely. It took TWO on Sunday, December 3, to get ‘er done but you rose to the challenge and worked it out, propelling the United States to a new, world record when it comes to the number of mass shootings in which at least four people died (not including the shooter) in a single year.

From now until the 31st, any more mass shootings will just be padding the stats. You’ve already set the new bar for next year, but raising it a bit means your record might stand for awhile. Meanwhile, all you cons better get to cleaning your weapons and stockpiling ammo. You’ve got a LOT of murdering to do to catch up to your fellows next year.

Sadly, I’m sure you’re up to it…

“They Ain’t Honest…”

by MyBaconPress

Have you heard about Georgia Republicans? They’re trying to create a “commission,” whose job it would be to “discipline and remove state prosecutors.” In the U.S., laws are written to apply to everybody, even a law aimed at a single person or group. The “state prosecutor” Republicans want to “discipline and remove?” Why, that would be Fani Willis, the Fulton County D.A. who brought charges against Donny for his alleged crimes against the United States (or in this specific case, Georgia).

Georgia Republicans don’t care that Donny’s a traitor. They love the guy. The Georgia State Supreme Court, basically, refused to issue a ruling, saying the work of District Attorneys is outside of their purview, which has stopped the commission for now. SO, the Georgia Republicans are trying to remove judicial oversight of their actions so they can proceed with their nasty, whiny commission anyway.

I’ll tell you this: NOTHING says, “We know he’s guilty” more loudly that trying to keep him from even being tried because you know in your shriveled little heart of hearts that he did what he’s accused of doing and if he goes to trial, he’s also going to jail…

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Well, sanity is available for the world’s viewing pleasure in the Middle East for the next four days. (Hurry! Only three days left!) They’ve taken a pause in the killing and dying to release hostages and bring in some humanitarian aid.

Not to worry, though. Even as the pause was being announced, Netanyahu made an appearance to assure the world this was just a pause and ONLY a pause and as soon as the agreed pause time was over, Israel would get right back to killing and bombing.

It’s like paying off an over-charged credit card. You pay it down and pay it down until you reach a point where, with one mighty push, you can pay it off! That’s how Netanyahu seems to me. He can see the end of Gaza, once and for all, with just one mighty push – and he’s planning to push hard.

But yeah, let’s focus only on Hamas rhetoric about pushing Israelis into the sea…

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I’ve decided I want to start a GoFundMe page. I’m trying to raise money to purchase guide dogs for the officials in the NFL. Normally, I’m a big fan of putting disabled people to work, if possible, but I think hiring blind people to officiate games may have been a poor execution of the concept. If it happens they’re not blind, there’s no rational explanation for the calls they’re making, week in and week out. At least, there’s no honorable, rational explanation.

You know what you can find on YouTube every week now? A summary of that week’s bad and questionable calls in the NFL. Every week. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was like, two or three plays but these videos are often as long as twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of bad calls, every week? And it’s not just me and the guy making the videos. The videos, themselves, offer no additional commentary but the broadcasters usually offer their own – and they tend to agree the calls make no sense and are clearly just…bad. Twenty minutes of “What the heck was that?” Every week. (As a sidebar: I’m expecting the NFL to crack down on broadcaster commentary any moment now. It doesn’t help when even the broadcasters are publicly questioning the questionable calls…)

It’s a very subjective area, though, exactly what the NFL counts on to get away with it. Sometimes, the videos show a call in one game that officials handle differently in another game. To me, that’s just a different set of officials, demonstrating that this is a tough thing to quantify. Bad calls have existed in every sport for as long as sporting has included officials. They are, after all, only human and mistakes happen. But I wrote at the beginning of this season that I suspected they would increase, now that the NFL has announced it’s “partnership” with Fan Duel, the sports betting web site. It seemed like tin-foil hat stuff, at the time, but just prescient now.

Gambling was removed from ALL sports in America (theoretically) when the 1918 Chicago White Sox got busted accepting bribes to throw the World Series. Yeah, the whole team, except for one player. The powers that be in the sporting world at the time worried that an association with gambling would hurt the integrity of their “product,” the games. Of course it does. Who cares who’s playing whom if the outcome is a foregone conclusion, decided in secret by a small handful of people?

I watch football to see the games unfold. Imagine the damage done to the overall game if it comes out that the games “unfold” in New York before they ever even start. It’s not like the bad calls have to change the outcome of the game, either, although they do that, too. Sometimes, in betting, all they have to do is control the spread and they control who pays whom and how much.

Okay, still tin-foil hat stuff. I have no evidence to prove the NFL is rigging games. All I can point to is the huge number of inexplicable bad calls that do, actually, change the games, an admittedly subjective measure, and how often those calls are happening. Combine that with the NFL’s now well-established, easily demonstrated, and sadly infamous greed, and the idea that the NFL might rig games to increase their own revenues cannot be dismissed as paranoia.

I’ll tell you this: I’d rather just watch the games play out naturally leading to an honest and fair outcome. But in this day and age, in this once-great nation, what chance does honest and fair have against a little more money in someone’s already overstuffed pocket?

Doing the Wrong Thing…

by MyBaconPress

Mega MAGA Mike the Johnson has started releasing video from January 6th. Lovely. The estimate is something like 44,000 hours of video. That’s a LOT, something like five years worth of time. The violent part of the insurrection Donny started lasted just over three hours. If you count the whole day, video could show up to seven hours including the violent rhetoric during the speeches in the ellipse, but I think they’re just video from the Capitol. So let’s think about this a moment.

How does one get 44,000 hours of video from a three hour event? Hell, Gilligan didn’t get 44,000 hours from his “three hour tour” and it went on for years. The answer is, it’s ALL the video from every camera in the Capitol, likely for most of the day. THAT means, in turn, the vast majority of what they have on video is empty hallways and normal, work-a-day stuff. I suspect it ALSO means that some clever sod could put together a map of the Capitol building based on the various camera angles. That seems like a bit of a security breech, to me, but it’s kind of off-topic from where I’m going with this.

The last time MAGA released some of the footage, we started seeing video of quiet hallways and normal business functions released by cons under headlines like, “What insurrection?” It’s easy, really. All you have to do is show the video where a crazy mob is NOT trying to break windows, smash doors, attack police officers, or anything else and pretend that’s all there ever was to see. A nothing-burger. Move along, Johnny, nothing to see here…

I’m very aware that there have been FAR more hours of video in the Capitol in which there is not an aggressively violent mob trying to murder the Vice-President of the United States and steal the election for dystopian Donny. The idea that one can show the normal stuff is in no way going to convince me that what I saw didn’t happen. But it WILL convince MAGA. But MAGA already works 25 hours a day to maintain their pretended beliefs so they don’t need no stinkin’ convincing.

So, in essence, nothing changes. Thinking Americans will continue to understand what actually happened in the Capitol that day and America-hating MAGA will continue to pretend it was just an unauthorized tour, reinforced by very selective showings from those videos. But I’ll tell you this: Any position one has to lie about to defend, doesn’t deserve to be defended…

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If you are, like I am, a victim of Pacific Gas and Electric (aka PG&E), you might be torch-and-pitchfork pissed off at their management (please leave the rank-and-file workers out of it), the PUC, and Governor Newsom right about now. This whole thing flows from conservative wrongheadedness about…well, everything, really, but in this case, business operations. In a nutshell, at some point, CEO’s began to be compensated with company stock, a practice once prohibited. The “thinking” was, if the CEO’s net-worth is tied to the stock value, he’ll do everything he can to increase the stock value. End of “thinking.”

That turned out to be true, in a horrifying way. See, CEO’s across the land realized that ANY stock increase made them richer, no matter how the increase came about. CEOs started decimating their companies, the content and quality of the services they provide, and the number of employees available to do the work. Most large corporations are trying for the ‘top-prices-for-as-little-as-possible’ model for the same reason: enhancing the CEOs take-home pay.

In the case of PG&E, they cleverly realized they could increase their bottom line – and, in turn, the stock price – by not maintaining their system. But PG&E’s “product” can be very, very dangerous, if not handled correctly. PG&E started deferring maintenance. It sounds very professional, doesn’t it, “deferred maintenance?” It means “we’re not doing the necessary maintenance anymore.”

The results were impressive. PG&E’s CEO made a killing, metaphorically. But then, PG&E’s “deferred maintenance” blew up a portion of San Bruno. PG&E deferred maintenance started the 2017 Tubbs fire that burned down a large portion of Santa Rosa, CA. PG&E deferred maintenance burned down Paradise, CA. PG&E deferred maintenance caused one fire after another. PG&E deferred maintenance killed many Californians, literally. PG&E deferred maintenance eventually got them sued, sued, and sued again. They lost in court, over and over. Now they owe billions of dollars in pay-outs to their victims. (California.) They’re not paying them, but they owe them. (It’s good to have connections and those connections are VERY well maintained…)

In an effort to stop the lawsuits, PG&E started “undergrounding” their electric lines. My whole life, I’ve wondered why they didn’t do that in the first place. The story was always the same: too expensive. Now? Not too expensive and a great opportunity to run a PR campaign showing how dedicated PG&E is to doing the right thing. “We’re undergrounding our lines – because it’s the right thing to do.” Fuck you, PG&E. You’re undergrounding your lines because you hope it will prevent future lawsuits and everybody knows it.

When the fines started getting handed down, we the rate-payers were assured (uh-huh) that we would not be on the hook for charges. The costs were to borne by PG&E and PG&E shareholders. The undergrounding of the lines PG&E should have been doing all along? That cost, too, was to be borne by PG&E and PG&E shareholders. But how does a company absorb all those payments without the CEO’s share price going down? I mean, if you actually hold the company responsible for their chosen actions, it risks a downturn in profits and, obviously, stock price. Can’t have that.

Each of those fires happened fast. People lost everything they owned fast. People lost their lives in fast-moving firestorms. But the payment? No, those are coming out slow. The repairs to the system we’ve all been paying to maintain for all of these years? “Hey, it takes time, we’re working on it. We’ve got PR commercials to make, you know.” Still, having to correct these horrendous choices (they call them “errors”) is costing the company money, as it should, but the company – and the shareholders – don’t like it. They’re trying to maintain shareholder value they created artificially by NOT maintaining their equipment in the first place – and they’re getting away with it.

This all gets very complicated but the short version is, PG&E is supposedly regulated by a group called the PUC, the Public Utilities commission. The PUC is presented as an independent body that oversees PG&Es operations but in reality, the PUC is owned and operated by PG&E to put a nice, clean face on PG&E’s crimes and deadly greed. What that means is that whenever PG&E wants a rate increase, they “ask” the PUC. The PUC pretends to hmm and haw over the thing for a little while and then? “Well, we’ve decided to grant the request.”

Governor Newsom could – and should – step in. But ole Gavin is running for President. (I know. He says he’s not but actions speak louder than words.) When one is running for President, one must curry favor with big bucks bankrolls. It’s the Capitalist way. PG&E falls into that category, perfectly. So Gavin protects PG&E over the citizens of the state he runs because it’s in his financial interest to do so.

California citizens paid PG&E to maintain their system all along.
California citizens paid the price when PG&E chose to disregard their responsibilities for profit.
California citizens are paying the fines and penalties for PG&E’s reckless operations.
California citizens are paying still more to maintain PG&E’s network.
California citizens pay…and pay…and pay…and pay some more.
And STILL, I get to wake up to condensation on my counters because I dare NOT turn up my heater to keep my house even slightly warm and liveable like I might do if I lived in a first world nation…

I’ll tell you this: I feel like a prisoner in this so-called “free market…”

Good for Trump, Bad for America…

by MyBaconPress

Well, I was certainly surprised to hear that the President of the United States of America is NOT an officer of the United States of America. Are YOU surprised? Is the CEO of a company NOT an officer of the corporation? What IS the President’s classification, if NOT an officer of the country? But, apparently, that’s the case.

People in three states that I know of (Michigan, Minnesota, and Colorado) have filed suit trying to keep Donny off the ballot via the 14th amendment, section 3. It says, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

So, then I looked up ‘Officer of the United States.’ Admittedly, I used Wikipedia. This is what it says; “An officer of the United States is a functionary of the executive or judicial branches of the federal government of the United States to whom is delegated some part of the country’s sovereign power. The term officer of the United States is not a title, but a term of classification for a certain type of official.”

So, this Judge, Sarah Wallace, has ruled in the Colorado case that Donny did, indeed, engage in insurrection but said the 14th amendment does not apply to the President of the United States because the President of the United States is not an officer of the United States. Sure, he’s a functionary of the executive branch and he certainly has been delegated some part of the country’s sovereign power – more than anybody else in the country at any given moment – but he doesn’t fit the description. Both Michigan and Minnesota have also ruled that he can stay on the ballot but they limited their decisions to the Primaries and not the General election.

It should be noted that the judge was appointed by a Democratic governor, but conservative brain-rot can hit anybody, at any time. It should ALSO be noted that the Chief Kangaroo in our corrupt Supremely Kangaroo Court, the dishonorable John Roberts, has already gone on record saying people don’t vote for Officers of the United States. Officers are merely hired workers. That’s why Senators and Representatives are named specifically. All of this means we already know how the corrupt court will rule once the case gets there. The traitor Trump gets to stay on the ballot.

So, because the Congress Critters of the day failed to write the word “President” in their Amendment, likely because they considered the President of the United States a natural officer of the United States, being the main representative of the United States and all, the tools Americans were given to try to stop known traitors from becoming President of the United States…simply don’t apply. Isn’t THAT lovely? Our once-great nation is going to become a Fascist authoritarian…um…”Shithole,” I believe is the term Donny used, because of a stupid loophole. I don’t like it any more than you do but the 14th isn’t going to keep Donny off the ballot in any state.

I’ll tell you this: The words of John F. Kennedy just keep ringing in my ears: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

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It’s called ‘Stochastic Terrorism.’ Again, from Wikipedia, “Stochastic terrorism refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech. Unlike incitement to terrorism, this is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence.”

It’s how Donny worked his self-blinded acolytes into a frenzy enough to attack Congress, assault people, and go to prison for him. After his New York fraud trial got going, he started in on a law clerk, Alison Greenfield. The presiding judge in the case, Arthur Engoron, issued a gag order tying to protect his staff.

The gag order was temporarily stayed on Thursday by one Judge David Friedman of the state’s intermediate appeals court, pending appeal. Judge Friedman is apparently more concerned about Donny’s freedom of speech than he is Mrs. Greenfield’s freedom to not be murdered by a nutball. I presume Friedman would have a different understanding if the threats were aimed at him or his family. He could have left the gag order in place while the appeal processed. That was an option. But he didn’t.

Donny didn’t waste one minute. In exercising his “free speech,” he immediately began posting new threats to Ms. Greenfield. Cue the crazies. I wonder if Mrs. Greenfield’s family can sue Judge Friedman if/when some trump-loyal nutball harms her because Donny wants them to. Small comforts, I guess…

Two big wins for Donny this week. Two BIG loses for the United States of America. Rational Americans thought (hoped?) we could resolve this nightmare peacefully, but it’s looking more and more like lawyers are going to keep that from happening…

MAGA Fallout…

by MyBaconPress

Ever since J6, Fascist MAGA has largely taken one of two tacks: the first one they tried was stupid, “What?!? Nothing happened! It was just an unauthorized tour. A peaceful unauthorized tour!” You’ll still hear it, from time to time, but it never did play well. We had all seen the events of the day with our own eyes and we weren’t about to believe MAGA’s lies over our own eyes.

The second story rolled out a bit more slowly but one could see it coming: blame it on Democrats. It was Pelosi who failed to properly secure the building. No mention of why the Congress suddenly needed extra protection, of course. MAGA likes to pretend they’re a bunch of tough guys so MAGA maniac Marjorie Taylor Greene has a new book out that takes tack two. Look for it in the remaindered bins in a week or so. She claims that when a number of House members were trapped in the gallery during the MAGA attack, she saw Republicans stay behind to “defend the chamber” but didn’t see one Democrat.

Fortunately for the Republicans, several Democrats DID stay and help. I say “fortunately,” because the Dems that stayed noticed that many of the members didn’t know how to put on their gas masks – so they helped. AFTER claiming she didn’t see one Democrat left in the gallery, she THEN claimed she saw Democrats “lying on the floor, hysterical.” (It’s part of MAGA de-humanizing efforts. Conservatives are strong, Liberals are weak. The idea is to show how easy it’s going to be to fight and beat Liberals. They did the same thing just before they started their losing effort in the American Civil War, too. Wrong then, wrong now…)

It’s really the bigger picture I’m concerned with here, though. When you first deny an event even occurred, then try to pin blame on someone else, you know what you’re doing? You’re confessing you know what happened. You know it was bad. You know it was wrong, and you know who did it.

Dear MAGA, you want to prove how manly and tough you are? Take responsibility for your actions. WE know what you did, YOU know what you did. Stand up and say so…

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With the help of Democrats, Kevin McCarthy passed a stop-gap spending bill to keep government open while he was still Speaker. So, MAGA fired McCarthy. (How DARE he do anything to help the country?) It was stupid and put them on full display as morons, so they (wait for it) blamed the Democrats. Yes, of course they did. Republicans try to blame Democrats for every stupid thing Republicans do. Then, they finally came together around someone I guess nobody really knew, Mike Johnson.

Now we all know a LOT about Mike Johnson and most of us wish we didn’t. Increasingly, most of us want to know what the hell he’s doing with his money, too. He claims he has no assets and no bank accounts. Nor does his wife. No assets, no bank accounts. How does he cash his House Check? Where does he put the cash? He makes, like $205,000/year, before taxes. That’s $17, 083.33/per month, paid in two monthly checks of $8,541.67. Is the Speaker of the House walking around with $8,500 dollars in his pocket every payday until he can get home and shove it under his mattress? But I digress…

It seems Johnson may have taken the Speaker job essentially just so he could get an investigation started on himself by authorities. Now, he passed a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government open through the holidays. MAGA hates the idea and Johnson got it done with the help of Democrats (obviously, their fault) and some of the moderate Republicans still occasionally found in Congress. If MAGA follows their previous behavior, Johnson now has to be removed. After all, he worked with Democrats for the benefit of the nation. MAGA will not have that. It flies in the face of their motto: “F*ck this country!” (Yeah, not very inspiring. Take it up with them…)

I don’t guess it’s particularly surprising MAGA is made up of people who know little to nothing about nearly everything. There’s a reason Trump “loves the uneducated.” Anybody who had any actual knowledge of the workings and realities of authoritarian states knows it’s a very bad idea and people pushing for it have their ignorance on full, neon display. But make no mistake: these people are dangerous and they don’t have enough information to know just how dangerous their ideas are.